Herbert Von Karajan - His Legacy for Home Video: The New Year's Eve Concert 1987

Rating:
Summary: Music of the Spheres...
Review: ... almost unbearably beautiful, Sphärenklänge alone is worth the price of the disc; not only have I been playing this concert every January first, but on occasions this track alone just for the sheer gorgeousness of it. Coincidently I ended up reading somewhere that the austrian conductor Wälser-Most plays this recording for the same reasons. I guarantee you it is worth the nine bucks!

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely gorgeous
Review: Gorgeous, state of the art recording, soiund and stage program, only comparable to famous Carlos Klavier concert, an absolute need to buy it. one of the best sounding DVD`S sound

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely gorgeous
Review: Gorgeous, state of the art recording, soiund and stage program, only comparable to famous Carlos Klavier concert, an absolute need to buy it. one of the best sounding DVD`S sound

Rating:
Summary: Spendid concert but inferior video picture quality
Review: If you like music of the Strauss family, this is a superb concert with great sound from 1987. The concert lasts about 90 minutes, with very few interruptions between pieces. The camera is mostly on the orchestra and conductor (who looks like he is on his last legs) and the playing is incredibly beautiful. Kathleen Battle is on stage for the "Voices of Spring" waltz and has a perfect coloratura for the part. The sound on the DVD is great and the program notes are good too. This is a definite buy.

Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous playing from the VPO
Review: If you like music of the Strauss family, this is a superb concert with great sound from 1987. The concert lasts about 90 minutes, with very few interruptions between pieces. The camera is mostly on the orchestra and conductor (who looks like he is on his last legs) and the playing is incredibly beautiful. Kathleen Battle is on stage for the "Voices of Spring" waltz and has a perfect coloratura for the part. The sound on the DVD is great and the program notes are good too. This is a definite buy.

Rating:
Summary: a magical evening of infectuously fun music making
Review: karajan told an interviewer that this concert reinvigorated him. he had been in much pain and, to be frank, had been producing much joyless music making for quite some time. before this concert karajan restudied these scores and put his heart, soul, and mind into this 'very theraputic concert'
the sense of fun that karajan had here is infectuous. this is as much fun as his decca recording of fledermaus.
too, his masterly sense of direction is a joy to watch. he controls the crowds clapping with merely a glance.
the staged dances (one with horses) adds to the sheer spectacle of the evening. by the time its over you really feel you were there and this is undoubtedly the best of the 'his legacy' films.
one MAJOR complaint to sony. while sony has released some of the more inferior editions (the bach and vivaldi concerts-two composers karajan simply was not aesthetically suited to) they have yet to release the brilliant (and his final) bruckner 8th
( a performance that floored leonard bernstein), the bruckner 9th or the strauss ein heldenleben. lets hope their releases are imminent.

Rating:
Summary: Get the Carlos Kleiber
Review: Not at all impressive when you have the likes of Carlos Kleiber conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in the same repertoire on DVD. The orchestra responds with allot more finesse to Kleiber.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: One of the great tragedies of European music. Karajan. Brilliant showman but mediocre musician. We in Vienna use to cringe when the band master rode into town. And to add insult to injury, our then greedy orchestra invited him to conduct the venerable New Year Day concert. It was the first time since 1973 that my family did not attend the event. We instead, listened to a wonderful Boskovsky record with our beloved orchestra.

Rating:
Summary: Spendid concert but inferior video picture quality
Review: The concert is probably the best Vienna new years concert ever. But I was very disappointed with the picture quality. What a pitty.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing, it's my Karajan's favorite
Review: This concert is mythical. Never before I saw so much empathy between the conductor, the orchestra and the audience. The performance is magnificent, the sound impeccable. The video quality is just good, probably because it came from a live televised broadcast, not from film. What happens between Karajan and the audience when playing the final piece makes me shiver every time I see it (I won't tell, buy and see yourself). Karajan was suffering from a lot of pain by that time, and he has difficulties to walk, but when the music begins it's like the pain disappears, and he performs with such energy and joviality that you can see the orchestra really enjoying the magical moment. There are so many favorite parts that I'll just mention a few of them: the phrasing pauses in Fledermaus overture (Karajan never did that before, nor any other conductor I know), the energy of Thunder and Lightning, the horses (you'll see, it's not just music), Voices of Spring with Kathleen Battle (her voice is so pure), and the Radetzky March (the last piece) with the participation of the audience (it became a custom after this performance). Even if you don't like classical music you'll enjoy this DVD, and you'll probably want to be a music conductor. As a gift to yourself and others, you can't be wrong with this video.